When planning a lead generation strategy, you have to decide how wide or deep to aim your outbound prospecting or outbound marketing initiatives. So, is the most effective outbound prospecting strategy wide or deep? The answer is it depends.
An effective outbound prospecting strategy for wide outreach
On one hand, reaching out to the masses with less interactions or touch points gains you a greater ability to stumble upon a potential opportunity. But reaching out to a wider audience of target prospects doesn’t usually allow you the time to cultivate longer-term relationships and eventual opportunities. This approach fosters a hit or miss situation. If you get lucky you may be able to uncover qualified potential opportunities.
An effective strategy for deep outreach
On the other hand, you may focus on calling deep within a limited number of accounts. This limits your bandwidth. There are only so many outreach efforts you can professionally and effectively accomplish in a given time frame. On the plus side, deeply penetrating an account, gathering substantial sales intelligence and truly reaching out to key audience contacts within the account can help you develop opportunities that may not have reached their potential had they not been nurtured. Giving depth to an outbound prospecting reach initiative can accomplish your goals also.
So the best of all worlds, as always, is a balance. Having the fair number of accounts balanced with touch points will generate awareness quickly.
So here are a few questions to guide you in planning the most effective outbound prospecting strategy.
1. How long will your outbound prospecting or outbound marketing initiative be conducted for: days, weeks, months or quarters?
2. How many accounts do you wish to penetrate?
3. How many contacts within each account do you wish to engage with?
4. What methods will you use to engage with key target audience contacts?
5. What will be your outreach strategy?
I hope these guidelines help you find the best balance with your outbound prospecting and outbound marketing efforts.